


Coatlicue

by Levi_Ackerman_is_bae



Series: Death Note, But It's Just Me Editing Small Parts of the Plot [1]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Character Death, Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Music, Minor Character Death, Murder, Music, Musicians, Original Character Death(s), Singer Light Yagami, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2019-11-03 22:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17886101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Levi_Ackerman_is_bae/pseuds/Levi_Ackerman_is_bae
Summary: "So, Light. I know it's a bit of a touchy subject currently, but everyone is wondering where you plan on going with your music career. Since your mother was your songwriter and now she's..." The reporter cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Gone."Light let the statement sink in, vividly remembering the events of that night, but dutifully keeping a small smile plastered on his face.--Basically a fic where Misa and Light sort of switch places.





	1. Drowning In Paper

Light smiled broadly as he waved to the crowd, the music starting to pick up and the bass pounding a constant rhythm beneath his feet. He heard the sound of his manager telling him to 'break a leg' through his earpiece as the crowd exploded with cheers. A fast bass rhythm started, the drums adding to it as Light begun to sing. Hundreds of people cheered as he performed his new song, none of them disappointed in the slightest by the sudden change in music genre.

_"So, Light. I know it's a bit of a touchy subject currently, but everyone is wondering where you plan on going with your music career. Since your mother was your songwriter and now she's..." The reporter cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Gone."_

_Light let the statement sink in, vividly remembering the events of that night, but dutifully keeping a small smile plastered on his face. "Well, the plan was to start writing my own songs. I don't really have a knack for writing the same genre as she did, so there will be a lot of changes in the music I'll be making now. It's kind of terrifying really. I just hope I won't disappoint," He added cheerily._

He quickly sung through the verse before the chorus with some exuberance. He smirked as he sung, feeling vaguely smug as he thought about how very real the lyrics of the song were. For him. For his enemies, who would soon be no more. For justice's sake. For a man who was probably currently drowning in fear. The man who knew what was coming to him. Who knew he would be dead very soon like the thousands of criminals before him.

_"Your manager actually gave us a copy of the finished product of your new music video. I believe the song is called Killer In the Mirror," The host added, breezily maneuvering the topic to the goal that she was to achieve by the end of the talk-show. Light merely smiled sheepishly. "It was quite the process. We spent weeks filming and editing and I'm still a little nervous about the end product." The interviewer laughed politely, an annoying little titter._

He waved his arms and bounced around the stage enthusiastically as he sung, crouching down near the front of the stage and giving a high five to one of his fans who tried (unsuccessfully) to sing along. He glanced at Sayu, who smiled with the brightness of the sun at her big brother.

_He turned a bit in his seat as the video showed on a screen in the center of the room just behind them. He grinned as he watched the events that had taken so long to film at the public pool a few blocks down from where he lived. Almost all the grief that he'd previously associated with that location now melted into psychotic glee as the pieces to his plans all started to fall into place._

**"There's nobody but me here. The killer in the mirror."**  He sung, staring out at the audience, hoping the man was there to see his untimely demise falling into place, but knowing otherwise. He discreetly checked his watch, seeing the time as 8:30 pm. He smiled as he cheered in acknowledgement of the audience as the song ended.  _Good. Only two days and three and a half hours left._

_He glanced at the live camera with a wicked grin as the music video ended, his smile a warning of what was to come as the interview continued._

_In a cheap hotel almost two miles away in downtown Tokyo, a man surrounded by empty beer cans cried in fear, knowing his death would come to him soon, like he had brought death upon the household of a single mother and her son and daughter._


	2. Frozen Muscle

Light Yagami thought his history was not very complicated. The death of his father, followed by the adoption of his cousin Sayu into their small family, and finally his mother's death. Many found it to be much more complicated than this.

For one, his father had been a high-ranking police officer who had been murdered on the job before Light had been born. He didn't find this to be a very important part of what made him Light Yagami, but his mandated therapist seemed to disagree. Then when his aunt and her husband had died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver who showed no remorse for his actions, Sayu had entered his life. She was what he liked to think of as the best accident that had ever happened to him, despite the mournful circumstances. This became especially true as they grew together, attached to the hip despite their age difference.

Between that and his mother's death was a bit blurry, but it mostly consisted of a stalker who had tried to kill him and failed utterly, then a happenstance with a mysterious notebook. During this time, Kira would rise as the God of the new world at the same time that Light would rise in fame. His mother was mostly to thank for that, being an amazing songwriter only seemed to help her son's singing career and together they would find love in their music. Her soft, melodious lyrics sung by a voice that almost seemed to wrench a person's heart in every which way made the duo a force to be reckoned with. Light had never had a problem talking about his mother with his friends. He seemed almost too fond of her for a teenage boy. He never minded the taunts of 'Mama's Boy' by his peers because he was proud of the fact that he was Sachiko's son.

She taught him about songwriting, but he was never able to create the soft melodies his mother hoped for, his own beat being far too fast, far too dark, and much more abrasive. Often his songs were about death and insanity, which his therapist scrutinized until there was nothing left to say about it.

Of course his therapist knew nothing about his alter-ego. It wasn't often that a Shinigami came knocking on your door, but when one did, you always answer. And of course he did. Not knowingly, but soon he came to realize his new position in the world. And only then did he decide to pave a path toward justice. If his therapist knew about it, she'd have a field day, explaining for hours how his obvious need for justice sprung from the deaths of his father and aunt and even later, his mother. He disagreed.

He saw the gaps in the justice system and felt a need to fill them. That was all. And it seemed the only justifiable reason to ever kill someone.

Then his mother was killed.

That was when his life flipped on its head. The week after her death he killed twice as many people as he had killed in the months since he first received the Death Note. Ryuk didn't seem to mind.

She was murdered by some sociopath who thought it would be fun to rape a single mother and drown her in the pool her son and daughter had gone to every summer as kids, then dump her body in the backyard for her son to find in the morning when he went to take out the trash. Her soaked body dressed only in a white nightgown, her damp hair frizzing in the humid weather, and her eyes wide open in horror. His terrified screams soon turned to uncontrollable sobbing as Sayu called the police. He didn't bother asking for his sister to call a hospital, knowing their mother, by blood or not, was beyond hope. Sayu's tears came much quieter as she attempted to console her brother.

Only a month after, he tried to take his life.

Sayu cried as she attempted to keep his blood from spilling all over the bathroom floor. He felt guilty for burdening her like this, especially after hearing her scream to wakefulness every night after and seeing the bloodshot eyes she wore since their mother's death. He spent a month in the hospital between the psych ward and healing the deep wounds on his arms. Sayu visited every day. So did his therapist.

What made it worse was how his newfound fame had made this event known to almost everyone in Japan. When he got back to school, he was greeted with silence and pity. He ignored the painful quiet and wrote name by name and researched day by day, trying to find the person who had burned his life to the ground.

He hated the people who gave him empty condolences or who acted like he was going to break from a light touch. He hated even more the ones who wrote articles about his attempted-suicide and his mother's death as if his pain were another scandal.

He tried singing a cover of Shinitai-chan and his producers went crazy over it, asking him to do covers of other vocaloids. Especially after fans and journalists became excited over the so-called return of Light's voice. He sung Clean Freak, Lost One's Weeping, and Lost Time Memory (the girl at the end of the music video reminded him of his mother) before moving on to a couple of English songs. He personally liked OCD and Panic Room. It wasn't much, but it kept people's attention until he was able to piece himself back together and formulate an ingenious plan to make the person who killed Sachiko suffer. Of course he had happened to find the perpetrator by this time.

That's when he started writing Killer In the Mirror. It was to become the name of its own album, which would contain that song and the last song his mother had written. His producers weren't very happy to be making an album with only two songs on it, but agreed nonetheless after he had proclaimed that he had more songs in the making already (a little white lie never hurt anybody).

Sayu was overjoyed to see her big brother getting back to himself bit by bit. This made him speed up the plan, wanting nothing more than for his happiness to be given back to him and believing the only way this would happen was with their mother's murderer's death. And seeing how Sayu got so excited just by the fact that he was singing again gave him the push he needed to get Killer In the Mirror out so that she could be proud of him, excited for him, and happy again.

She was there with him when he recorded the last song that their mother had written,  _If We Have Each Other_. They both cried the first time around, but Light managed to sing the whole song after a few attempts. That night they sung the song together as they danced in the living room, crying as they mourned together. They sung the story of their mother and her love for her baby boy that she would parent by herself, the story of their long-gone grandparents that loved each other more than any two people in the world, and the story of the two of them struggling together without their parents.

They danced together with 'I love you's on the tips of their tongues, toeing around the twinkling fairy lights scattered around the room from an unpacked, lonely Christmas.


	3. Cadaverous Skin

L stared at his screen in slight astonishment. It couldn't possibly be this easy of a solve. Easy enough that people had already been theorizing that his suspect was Kira. But the evidence was irrefutable. In his head, the suspect's probability of being Kira seemed to be at 80 percent, but after factoring in some of his doubts, he decided on a firm thirty percent chance. It was exceedingly high compared to everyone else. High enough for him to feel that further investigation was necessary.

He bit his thumb with a look of determination on his face as he stared down the screen in front of him. "Light Yagami, you've made yourself so obvious, I almost don't want to believe it. First with Kira's absence while you were in the hospital and now the man who killed your mother suddenly drowns himself after your song, Killer in the Mirror, comes out. And on the anniversary of your mother's death as well. Considering the suicide note and the lack of a heart attack causing his death, it seems to not be the work of Kira, however the fact that he died in the same place as the woman he killed in almost the same manner seems to indicate that this was a meticulously planned murder." He paused in his ramblings to himself before sliding a paper from an open manila folder beside him across the desk to lay in front of him. "If Kira is able to kill by means other than a heart attack, that will make things more complicated."

"The note is obviously a code as well. Not to mention the events in the musical video are very suspicious. Killer In the Mirror..." He hummed to himself, carefully replacing the paper back in the manila folder. "Watari, I think it's time I went to see Light Yagami in person."

* * *

"Sayu," Light whined, leaning on her until she was wobbling in the effort to stand up straight. He gave her puppy eyes while she continued to pout at him.

"No. You called me creepy. And I'm certainly not going to prove your point by playing the part of a poltergeist in your music video."

Light sighed melodramatically. "I called you creepy in an endearing kind of way." He smiled. "Besides, you're going to be here the whole time I'm here anyways and you have dark hair. Classic poltergeist girl."

Sayu gasped in mock-offense. "It's so much more than that,  _Yagami-sama_. Besides, my hair isn't  _that_ dark. Classic poltergeist girls usually have black hair." She put her hands on her hips.

Light's manager, Yoshi, looked on at the two bickering siblings in amusement. They didn't actually have to start filming for two or so hours and they were still finishing up collecting ideas.

She remembered how Light had suggested that Sayu play the part of the poltergeist in the music video when the director had suggested hiring a model for the part. He'd acted casual about it, but it was obvious by the gleam in his eyes that he was looking forward to working with his sister, especially if it meant he was able to tease her about it. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, considering how Sayu was almost always by Light's side since Sachiko's death.

Yoshi remembered Sachiko. She thought she was an amazing mother, especially considering how she had to take care of the two on her own. Sachiko had been the cheeriest between herself and Light.

She had never thought of separating the two, even when Light was busy with his job. The two may have been cousins, but since Sayu's adoption into the family, she'd never been anything  _but_  Light's little sister. She kept him from straying from his work better than even Yoshi was able to. The two may bicker a lot, but the end game of their arguments were always in favor of Light, which Yoshi was typically happy about.

By the time Yoshi snapped out of her thoughts, the argument was already over and Light was grinning in victory, while Sayu slumped in defeat with a pout.

She clapped her hands, snapping the two out of their moods. "Alright then, let's get you dressed, Sayu-chan. I promise, you won't look too creepy. We've actually got a very American-type outfit set for you. You'll look so cute, I promise!" She smiled cheerily and led Sayu to the dressing rooms.

Yoshi suddenly turned to light with a shark-like grin on her face, making the teen concerned for his own wellbeing, considering some of the outrageous requests his manager had thrown at him before ("But Light-kun, you have so many fangirls! Just a little fanservice for the ladies is bound to up your popularity by at least twenty percent!"). He shuddered at the memory.

"Whatever it is, the answer is no." Yoshi's shark-like grin was not deterred in the slightest. "You haven't even heard what I have to say," She replied snidely. Light held a level glare with her, unmoving in his answer. Yoshi's grin suddenly disappeared and she raised her hands in the air and looked up at the ceiling as if asking for some God to have mercy on her and give her a client that wasn't as stubborn as Light. "It's not even that bad! You'd only be shirtless. Nobody gets to see anything below the waist."

Light's eyes narrowed. "You're still hung up on that fanservice thing, aren't you?" He countered. Yoshi flinched in sorrow for the extra money that was never racked in because of Light's stubbornness. "This has nothing to do with that! Were you even listening when we were brainstorming for the video?"

Light rolled his eyes. "Of course. All I really have to do in the video is just act like I woke up from a nightmare and then lay in bed for the rest of the video. Sayu gets to do all the important stuff. And I don't need to be shirtless for that!"

Yoshi rolled her eyes in return. "Okay  _Yagami-sama_. Would you prefer to wear some footie pajamas?" She asked sarcastically, mimicking Sayu's earlier use of his name. Light let out a heavy sigh. "I'm sure Matsuda already has an outfit set up for me that involves a  _shirt,_ so your argument is already invalid."

Yoshi cursed. She hated how Light's new designer was just as uncomfortable making showing outfits as Light was wearing them. It only encouraged Light's prudeness, which was bad for her business. She conceded defeat to Light, who grinned broadly before going to the dressing rooms to see Sayu and get dressed, himself.

It was a rather quick process with the two leaving the dressing rooms at the same time before they would inevitably be converged by makeup artists and hairstylists. But for now they still had time, so they sat around talking about the music video with Matsuda. She had to admit that she liked the outfits Matsuda had chosen, even if they were overly casual and somewhat bland.

Sayu wore an over-sized, white shirt with white jeans and tennis shoes. Her accessories included large, silver cross earrings and an assortment of silver necklaces, rings and bracelets. Light merely wore a black shirt and shorts with a silver necklace that had keys and locks on it. He didn't even have shoes, just a pair of black socks.

She didn't really know much about Matsuda or even how he'd gotten his job as Light's designer, but she liked him. He was enthusiastic and had good taste. He'd also become very close with Sayu in the short time he'd known her, though Light often seemed apprehensive of him. For what reason, Yoshi had no clue. Though sometimes when Matsuda wasn't looking, she'd catch a small smirk on Light's face.

Yoshi plopped herself beside Sayu on the couch and started playing with her hair. "Hey, Sayu? How would you feel about dying your hair black?" She asked with an innocent smile on her face, only to be met with a horrified look on Sayu's end. "No! I'm not going to make myself look even more like a creepy poltergeist!" She screeched in horror. Light looked on in amusement and Matsuda chuckled from his spot beside Light.

"What about a greyish blue?" Yoshi asked. Sayu tilted her head back in thought.

"Maybe."

Yoshi cheered victoriously. "Great! Matsuda, go get the hair dye from Light's dressing room. It's in that one unpacked box in the corner of the room. It says dōTERRA on it." She smiled kindly as Matsuda made to leave.

Light stared at her in open-mouthed horror, realizing that she'd probably been planning to dye  _his_  hair. And considering some of her unorthodox methods, she might have at some point in the future decided to try to dye his hair while he slept or replaced his shampoo with the hair dye.

Matsuda came back with the whole box. "I didn't know which one was the color you wanted, so I just brought all of them."

And lo and behold, there in the box was about a hundred bottles of colored hair dye. Yoshi dug around the box for all of two seconds, her arm going so far in that her whole arm became invisible, and pulling out two silver bottles that were practically identical to all the other bottles in the box.

She then pulled out a rolled up fabric that had multiple brushes that looked similar to what you used to paint walls of other large surfaces. The brush was flat and out of the end of the handle, black bristles grew out in a thick line. There were ones that were bigger than others, then there were ones with a slant to the bristles. Then she pulled a bowl and a roll of aluminum foil out of the box.

She opened one of the bottles and dumped the sky-blue contents into the bowl. "Okay, this here is the bleach. What we're going to do is put this in your hair and then after half an hour, we're going to wash it out. And after that we're going to put the blue in and let that sit for another half hour. We don't really need to wait for the stylist to get here for that. She's just going to use product to accentuate the color."

Sayu nodded in understanding as Yoshi produced a hair clip from out of nowhere and started sectioning off her hair with an excited vigour. Light rolled his eyes and stood up. "I'm going to get some air."

Matsuda immediately jumped up beside him, mumbling that he'd accompany Light.

The two step outside the stuffy building into a side-alley. They stand just outside the door in an uncomfortable silence before Matsuda breaks it. "I, um, I knew your dad." Matsuda mentally face-palms at his own creepy little observation. Light doesn't seem to find it that way, turning his head a little in surprise. "Yeah?" Matsuda nodded his head a little too enthusiastically.

"Soichiro Yagami. Before I got into this, I worked with the ICPO. I didn't really work under him, but my own father worked for the ICPO so I often saw him whenever the ICPO had social events and I was allowed to go. He was kind of my hero." Matsuda smiled softly.

Light nodded apprehensively. "He died before I was born, so I wouldn't really know much about him."

"He was a good man." They drifted into silence once again.

Light leaned back against the brick wall, humming to himself as he tapped along to the rhythm of his own voice along the wall. He closed his eyes as he hummed, not particularly caring about the fact that Matsuda's eyes were stuck on him. Occasionally he mumbled lyrics along with the incessant tapping, though he sung like as if he had forgotten most of the words to the song and what order the lines went in.

Light's eyes opened suddenly and he mumbled that he was going to go inside, Matsuda following dutifully behind. When they got inside, they saw that Yoshi had finished covering Sayu's head in bleach and foil.


	4. Dripping Blood Down the Stairs

"This is really fun, but my back is starting to hurt," Sayu complained as she hung in midair. She was held up by a cable attached to her waist, facing toward the ceiling. Her body was bent at an odd angle at her lower back. She was about four feet in the air, her head, arms, and legs hung limp underneath her body.

Light grabbed her shoe and spun her. She screeched with delight as her cadaverous blue hair started fluttering as she spun.

"Just give the cameraman a second. I hope you guys aren't prone to seizures," Yoshi warned before the lights suddenly started flickering.

"My eyes hate this," Sayu commented, throwing a hand over her face. The cameraman gave Yoshi a thumbs up and Yoshi swatted Sayu's hand away from her face. "We're almost done. Just let the cameraman film." Sayu groaned, but complied as everyone got out of the way and signaled that they were ready.

When the cameraman was finished filming, they unhooked Sayu. She stretched with her hands over her head. "Man, I should become a contortionist," Sayu commented jokingly.

"You could barely handle bending backwards a little bit. What makes you think you'd be a good contortionist?" Light answered. Sayu stuck her tongue out at her brother. "Like you could do any better," Sayu challenged.

Light merely smirked in response before cracking his knuckles and leaning back until his hands touched the ground behind him. He then scooted his fingers closer to the heels of his feet, raised one of his legs into the air and lifted himself into a handstand before his momentum pushed him back onto his feet.

Matsuda clapped enthusiastically. "Wow! That's so cool! Where did you learn to do that?" Light shrugged. "Preschool gymnastics."

Sayu scowled. "Lies! You can't just learn how to do a flip, not practice for it for ten years, and suddenly do it perfectly again. That's not how it works!" Sayu argued, despite having seen it for herself. Light shrugged. "As long as I stay physically fit and can remember how to do it, sure I can. Besides, I play tennis, which requires me to have flexible wrists and a strong grip, so I didn't have trouble with having to bend my hands so far back." Light started, before Sayu interrupted.

"I can think of a few other ways to get flexible wrists and a strong grip," Sayu wiggled her eyebrows. Light nodded very seriously. "And that's how I'm able to keep up my flexibility in my spine," Light answered monotonously. Sayu groaned in disgust. "Oh my God. You're so gross," She giggled.

Yoshi, Matsuda, and the cameraman all stood uncomfortably as the two siblings bickered.

"Is this your way of telling me you finally got a girlfriend?"

"No."

"Come on. You need to grow up a little."

"Says you."

"I can get a date perfectly fine! You're the one that seems to have problems with social interaction!"

"Please. You only ever hang out with me and I've never seen any date of yours." Sayu crossed her arms, pouting and mumbled under her breath, which Light took as another victory. "Besides, the only girl I want to spend my time with is you," Light added, easily pacifying the younger girl. "You sound like some incestual creep," Sayu commented as a last jab before letting it drop.

They started to move on, having gotten the hardest parts of the video done. While Matsuda tried to put black contacts into a constantly flinching Sayu's eyes, Yoshi started talking about what they were going to do next in extreme detail.

Light groaned internally. All they would be doing was laying down and lipsincing the song. Light on the bed of the small apartment (they'd rented out a whole floor for this video) and Sayu underneath the bed, like a child's monster. He would actually be lipsincing short phrases while he was in focus, but when he wasn't in focus, Sayu would lipsinc with him. And she'd be lipsincing most of it. His voice may have been the main focus of the song, but if a person focused, they could hear Sayu softly singing underneath his voice in a creepy lilting melody throughout the duration of the song.

It actually took a long time (and a few people) to wrestle Sayu's eyes open for the black contacts, which made her eyes look wholly black. The whites of her eyes were completely gone. But once they were done, it was easy sailing for the next part of the video.

Multiple cameras were set up around the room and they started out with just Light in the frame. Light laid down on the bed, with the covers up. The bed was actually rather cheap and uncomfortable, but Light could appreciate the city view from the large window beside it. As the film started rolling, Light laid still before shooting up as if awakened by a nightmare at the same instant Yoshi waved her hand in the air trying to signal him (though his eyes were supposed to be closed when she gave the signal, so he didn't understand the use of it).

He then sank back down into the bed and closed his eyes again.

"Sayu."

They paused the film so that Sayu could crawl under the bed on her stomach and they started filming from the side as the music started up through a small speaker near the same camera, which panned down to Sayu. She had her eyes closed when the camera finally made its way to her, but she opened her eyes as she started lipsincing. The camera then snapped to Light as he lipsinced the words 'come here,' 'listen,' and 'careful.'

After the song ended, Sayu got out from under the bed and they filmed a short clip of Light laying in the bed by himself, while police sirens sounded in the distance. Matsuda had announced his concerns about the extra sound before being shut down by the cameraman, who said that it was fine in this instance. They then had Sayu stand by Light's bed as she lipsinced certain parts of the song, even going so far as having Light vacate the bed entirely while she stood beside it.

After they finished filming for that room, they went out into the hall and filmed Sayu dancing around the hall. They then started filming some creepier stuff with Sayu being rolled forward on a scooter board (which took multiple times to film as Sayu was having trouble balancing), but only showing the upper part of her body so it looked like she was levitating forward. Then they filmed her feet as she was held above the ground, letting her feet drag behind her. Then they had her stand in multiple spots as lights blinked around her to make her look like she was teleporting around the hall when the video was edited later.

After this, they decided to call it a day since the other parts of the video required a few other people who weren't there that day and they hadn't finished setting up the other room they would be filming in yet.

Sayu skipped happily as the exited the building and started heading toward their chauffeur. The chauffeur was an older English man who didn't speak much named Watari. He stood beside a slick, black limousine holding the back door open for the siblings.

The two entered the vehicle, Sayu heckling Light, who smacked her on the top of her head. When Watari was finally in the driver's seat, he lowered the partition. "Do you two mind if I pick up my son on the way?" He asked. In true honesty, neither of them cared. Watari usually ended up doing extra errands for the two, such as picking up their friends (read: Sayu's friends) and helping them with grocery shopping. He was more of an over-glorified nanny than a chauffeur most of the time.

The two shook their heads in response and Watari raised the partition again as they drove off.

After a quarter of an hour, they arrived at a hotel. The parking lot was rather empty, aside from a few cars (most of the hotel's occupants were probably out and about since it was daytime) and an odd man standing alone at the entrance of the hotel. He slouched and had pasty white skin as well as dark bags under his eyes. He wasn't even wearing shoes, Light noted. The man waved as they slowed to a stop beside the hotel. He then walked up to the car and got into the back with Light and Sayu.

Sayu seemed excited to meet a new person and immediately introduced herself and started asking the man random questions.

"What's your name?"

"Hideki Ryuga."

"We met Hideki Ryuga before and you look nothing like him."

"The pop star? Yes, I suppose we have nothing in common beside our names."

"Why do you sit like that?"

"It increases my deductive reasoning skills."

"Cool! Are you a detective or something?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever been in a car chase before?"

"I'm a private detective, not a police officer. I don't get very hands-on with a lot of my cases."

"Does your job make you good at solving riddles?"

"Not necessarily."

"What has a head, a tail, is brown, and has no legs?"

"A penny," Hideki and Light answered at the same time. Sayu made a face at how quickly they answered the question. "Um, what comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?"

"The letter 'M,'" They both answered at the same time again, Light mumbling, while Hideki spoke more clearly.

"What has many keys, but can't open a single door?"

"A piano." Sayu sighed in defeat. "Do you know any good riddles, Ryuga-san?" She asked.

"I know a few. They're all psychological riddles, though."

Sayu nodded. "That's okay."

Hideki cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. "A young boy receives two presents for Christmas; a soccer ball and a bike. But he's not happy. Why?"

Sayu tapped a finger against her chin. "Is he unhappy because he wanted more presents?" She asked uncertainly. Ryuga shook his head slowly.

"It's because he has no legs," Light piped up, surprising Sayu. "Oh, that makes sense since you need to have legs to play with both toys. That's a little morbid though." Sayu hummed in thought.

"You live in a fifth floor apartment. You look out the window to see a man murdering someone across the way. He then points his finger at you and starts moving it up and down. Why?"

Sayu hummed in thought. "Are there other people in the building? Or maybe he's a foreigner and where he's from that's the equivalent of a warning or something. No that's not it..." Her face scrunched up in concentration. "I don't know."

"He's counting the floors."

Sayu whirled on Light with a scandalized look on her face. "You are officially disowned." Light shrugged nonchalantly. "You weren't going to get it anytime soon." Sayu gasped in mock-offense. "How dare you-"

Hideki smiled with some amusement as the siblings bickered, though they quickly calmed down and Sayu started asking him if he knew any more riddles.

"You go to a family member's funeral and you meet a man who you get along with, but he leaves soon after the funeral. You ask around and find that nobody knows who the man was. You then go home and kill your brother, or in Light's case, your sister. Why do you do it?"

"Oh! Light's dating him and I don't want to lose him to the stranger!" Sayu exclaimed, receiving a semi-worried look from Light.

"And this is why I don't date anyone."

"No, it's because you lack basic social skills."

Hideki shook his head, no. "Any other guesses?" Light nodded his head in response. "I kill Sayu so I can see the man again at her funeral."

Sayu gasped. "This is betrayal of the highest degree. I think I'm going to have to kill you again for that nonsense." Sayu mimed stabbing Light in the stomach, to which he just laughed.

"A murderer stabs someone five times and leaves them in an elevator which has windows on all sides. As the elevator descends, the murderer watches the elevator. Why does he do this?"

Sayu appeared to think for a moment. "Um, because he's a creep? I've heard that serial killers have weird obsessions with the people they kill," She answered uncertainty.

"He watches so he doesn't look suspicious. If there was a dead body in a windowed elevator, everyone would be watching, so it would be considered strange not to," Light explained. Hideki nodded in response.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side," Sayu commented jokingly.

"A man wakes up in the middle of the night and gets up to get a glass of water from the kitchen. While he's in the kitchen, he sees a robber, then runs and hides in a closet. You're the robber and you have a knife in your hand. What do you do?"

Sayu laughed. "I get the hell out of there. No way am I waiting for the cops to show up."

"If I were the robber, I would walk past the closet, open and close the door, and quietly sneak back toward the closet and wait for him to come out so I can kill him. Can't have any witnesses to link me to the crime," Light smirked slightly. Hideki nodded quietly.

"I should tell you now that the riddles I've been sharing with you are meant to indicate if a person is a psychopath. Of course it doesn't mean with absolute certainty that you are, but answering in a certain way can indicate that you may have psychopathic tendencies."

Light's eyes widened in surprise and Sayu nudged him in the ribs. "See, I knew you were crazy," She joked.

Hideki nodded. "Do you still want to try to guess the last two riddles I have?"

Sayu nodded her head enthusiastically while Light shrugged nonchalantly.

"This one starts out with 2 questions leading up to it." Sayu nodded in understanding, urging him to continue.

"A runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people, but there is a fork in the path where there is one person on the other tracks. You're the conductor. Do you choose to stay on track and kill 5 people or turn and kill one?"

"That's easy. You turn and kill the one. Five lives are more valuable than just one." Light didn't answer.

"A runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people, but there is a fork in the path where there is one person on the other tracks. This person on the other side is someone you know and love. Do you choose to stay on track and kill 5 people or turn and kill the person you love?"

Sayu seemed to think hard over this one. "I let the five die. I can't let Light die." She mumbled, receiving no answer from Light. Hideki nodded again.

"A runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people and you are standing on a footbridge next to a large stranger; your body is too light to stop the train, but if you push the stranger onto the tracks, killing him, you will save the five people. Would you push the man?"

Light's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Is that even physically possible? I mean, a trolley usually goes at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour and weighs a little over 31,000 kilograms when empty and about 37,500 kilograms with an average amount of passengers. You'd have to weigh a lot to stop it, especially considering how frail the human body is compared to a trolley."

Hideki smiled slightly. "Yes, I'm aware that the physics is rather dubious. You're just supposed to ignore that part."

Light rolled his eyes as Sayu gasped in horror, her answer already obvious. "I could never kill someone like that!"

"Well I guess those 5 people are going to die, then," Light commented, making her feel a tiny bit guilty for her choice. "But he didn't do anything. He's not part of it."

"In the first example, you were willing to kill the one rather than the five. He wasn't part of it either." Sayu groaned in frustration. "It's different!" Light shrugged. "How? You have to deliberately kill a person to save the other five in both examples." Sayu threw her hands in the air in frustration. "It just is! Why do you have to question everything?"

Hideki cleared his throat in an attempt to distract the bickering siblings. "Last one: You're in a dark forest, alone at night. You hear a noise behind you and turn to see what it it. What exactly did you see? The opposite sex, nothing, a ghost, a dog, or a wild animal?"

"A ghost," Sayu replied immediately. "That would be super scary."

"A dog," Light answered instead.

"Why a dog?" Sayu asked. Light shrugged. "I don't know. They're not as scary as the other options. Why would I want to put myself in a situation like that?"

"What's so scary about girls, huh?" Sayu snapped with her hands on her hips. "It's not girls in general that I'm worried about. Just creepy stalker girls following me into a dark forest," Light answered. "What about a wild animal? It could be a cute little bunny," Sayu asked. "Or it could be a mother bear." Sayu narrowed her eyes. "And you're afraid of there being nothing?" Sayu asked. "If there's nothing there, then what made the noise? The appearance of nothing would just make me even more suspicious that something dangerous was near." Sayu sighed in defeat.

The car suddenly stopped and Light blinked, looking out the window to see that they were home already.

"See you later, Ryuga!" Sayu called, excitedly bouncing out of the limousine. Light merely waved as he exited the vehicle and followed Sayu into the house.


	5. We'll Paint These States Green and Red

_"You take your aim to point the blame,"_ Light sung softly, pressing into the keys of the piano. He imagined how his mother would have played it with so much more care and ease, while he practically massacred the keys, despite how softly he played. Hideki sidled up next to him on the piano bench. He was actually rather surprised how often he'd seen Hideki around after their meeting with Watari previously. The Yagami siblings had become very quick friends with the man after so many odd conversations and their friendship only seemed to grow that much stronger when Hideki admitted to being the infamous L, despite immediately mentioning that he suspected Light of being Kira.

Light's relationship with the man seemed to be purely an interest and curiosity, while Sayu, who was also very inquisitive about him, took the opportunity to make an alliance against Light with the odd man. Light was obviously not pleased to see that his sister and Hideki had decided to become team let's-embarrass-and-make-fun-of-Light-at-every-given-opportunity or as they liked to call themselves 'The LEAMFOLAEGO Squad' (mostly Sayu though, as Hideki was not that amused by the nickname despite insisting on calling themselves the Gay Protection Squad instead, which Sayu had turned down because "Light hasn't come out of the closet yet, so I gotta be supportive of his closet-ed self." Their shenanigans had earned them more than a few eye rolls from Light).

Hideki hummed along softly. "Why do you sing so many of your songs in English? Isn't that rather difficult, considering Japanese is your mother tongue?" Hideki asked, fully aware that Light was very fluent in English, so it probably wasn't actually a problem for him. Light shrugged in response. "I'm fluent in English, so it's not that hard. Plus a lot of people like English songs, especially abroad. Not everybody listens to Kpop, but a lot of people are willing to listen to people like Taylor Swift and Kanye." Hideki nodded. "I suppose that makes sense if you want to be more popular as a songwriter or even take your music to the world-wide level."

Light nodded back. "Though I suppose the songs I write are not as popular as they would be if written into the more popular hip hop genre."

"Light! You have to see this!" Sayu sung, plopping a rather expensive-looking XP tablet on the top of the piano in front of the two boys. On it was an on-going video of a blonde girl dressed in American colonial garb singing along to the song playing. She had her pixie-cut bangs curled into her forehead and the rest of her hair was styled in a way that almost made the top of her head look completely flat. It was a rather pretty scene with a beautiful dining room one would expect to be in an early 16th century European house, though the scene was diluted by the old woman who was wheeled into the room and given a heart on a plate.

Light grimaced at the sight of the woman putting it in her mouth. The scene then switched to a man finding a tree with hearts growing off it and digging up a naked girl. It was all so strange, yet entrancing. And it seemed as if the girl who was singing was only a background character in her own video. The video was so dark in nature, while the song seemed to be about love. The background music accentuated the perfect nature of the relationship the girl sung about in a cute, high-pitched voice.  _"You be the moon, I'll be the earth and when we burst, start over, oh darling, begin again."_

Light gave Sayu a look that clearly said  _why the hell did you feel the need to show me that music video?_  Sayu grinned mischievously. "Her name is Misa Misa and she wants to do a duet with you, Light!" Sayu squealed, no doubt thinking that this was the perfect opportunity to set her older brother up with a date. "And how did you find this information before I did?" Sayu shrugged and tapped the screen, changing it to an article about an interview taken of Misa Amane.

Light quickly scanned the document, seeing that Misa had in fact said that she wanted to do a duet with Light. Oh, his manager was going to be hounding him about this. Sayu then pulled up a plethora of images of Misa, babbling on about how pretty she was. All the pictures showed her with gothic lolita clothes on. She seemed to fit the part of emo-popstar more than Light did. And he was a serial killer for Christ's sake. Her normal attire definitely contrasted to that that she wore in the video. Hell, in the music video she could pass as a bubbly blonde, even with the dark imagery.

Light hummed for a moment. The girl was actually as popular as him, though she seemed to fall into a completely different crowd with her music. His manager would probably hound him to do a duet with her, however he wasn't nearly dumb enough to pass up an opportunity like this, especially considering how his popularity had been waning recently after his lack of output and later entire change of musical genre he was putting out. And as his brain whirled around the idea, he decided that he could have some use for the girl unrelated to music.

Yes, this was a perfect opportunity.

**Author's Note:**

> I created a discord so if you want to talk to me or just tell me to hurry the hell up with my updates, go [here.](https://discord.gg/ReWSvyT)


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